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Man, for I am going to beat you to a pulp with my big strong hands.’ She snorted her disgust. ‘Dukey, you’re full of it. This guy Bassalino is a big-time capo. If you got anywhere near him, you’d get your ass burned good. And even if you
can
get to him—what then? Kill him?
    Hey, man, what’s dead? Dead is nothing. Dead is an easy scene. The way we’ve thought of is the
only
way to really get to the fucker—
the only way.
’
    Dukey glared at her. ‘Rio, baby, your problem is you live your life between your legs. A little bit of screwin’ here, a little bit of ass there. So fuckin’ what? These guys have had it all before. Your pussy got a fur lining or somethin’?’
    â€˜Fuck you, Dukey. I can make it work,’ she said confidently.
    â€˜Yeah,
you
probably can. A sex freak like you. Maybe Lara, too, I’m not into her whole scene. But Beth? You’ve gotta be kidding. A baby like her will get mashed up and eaten by the
dudes you’re
talkin’ about.’
    Beth spoke up for herself. ‘I can do it,’ she said hotly. ‘I haven’t led such a sheltered life. Besides’—she widened her soft, blue eyes—‘I want to do it. For Margaret.’
    â€˜It’s settled,’ Rio announced. ‘Fucking settled. And we start as soon as possible.’
    Dukey K. Williams left the meeting shortly after, muttering under his breath. ‘Dumb broads. What do they know? Nothin’. Like
nothin’.
’
    He climbed into his white Rolls Royce, parked illegally outside Cass’s building, angrily shoving a tape into the tape deck. It happened to be
Dukey K. Williams Sings Dukey K. Williams.
The first track was ‘Soul, Grit, and Margaret.’ He had written it for her.
    Jesus Christ, what a stubborn woman she’d been. One hell of a wild lady—in bed
and
out. If only she’d listened to him…
    â€˜Drop it,’ he’d warned her time and time again. ‘Don’t fuck with the big boys. So you save a few hookers, it ain’t gonna help. Save a few, lose a few, it’s all shit.’
    â€˜What’s the matter, Dukey? Don’t you think hookers deserve saving?’ Margaret had asked.
    â€˜Hell, honey—if you do get ’em off the streets, before you can say big bucks they’ll be back out again.’
    â€˜Cynical.’
    â€˜Cynical—shit, I’m a realist. Give up, babe, it’s a losin’ proposition.’
    â€˜That’s what everyone told me about you.’
    â€˜Yeah?’
    â€˜Absolutely.’
    â€˜So why are you with me?’
    â€˜Because I looked beyond the image and I found a man I could relate to. A man who’s had his share of tough knocks.’
    Margaret understood him better than anyone. She had taken the time to find out why he’d been in trouble in the past, and when he’d told her everything about himself she’d stayed with him anyway. And it wasn’t just sex. The sex was something else, but what really mattered was not so much the physical action—more a clash of two opposite and very strong personalities bound irrevocably together.
    â€˜Do me a favor, babe. Forget about saving any more hookers. Trust me—it’s too dangerous,’ he’d told her.
    She had just smiled at him, that warm, sexy Margaret smile, and ignored his advice.
    He didn’t know how it happened, but suddenly he was in the middle. Right in the fuckin’ middle. There was money he owed—not a lot by his standards, a couple of hundred thousand. No big deal, he could pick that up on a single, or a couple of weeks gig at some Las Vegas shithouse. But he owed it, and the way things were, he just didn’t have it on hand to pay back. He’d recently had to pay a giant sum to ex-wife number two, and his other expenses were big and immediate. Dukey K. Williams lived as a real duke would have liked to.
    Anyway, he